After 48 hours of getting roasted from every corner of the globe, Andrew Hornery, the journo behind *that* Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) article has finally followed up with a response.
The full article is available to read here. In the interest of discretion and at the risk of you, the reader, losing any more brain cells we’ve only copied in select portions of Hornery’s full follow-up story.
In the piece “I made mistakes over Rebel Wilson, and will learn from them“, Hornery attempts to explain his actions.
“On the weekend I wrote about the background leading to Rebel Wilson’s social media post revealing her new relationship with another woman. I have learnt some new and difficult lessons from this and want to be upfront with you about the things I got wrong,” Hornery begins.
“I genuinely regret that Rebel has found this hard. That was never my intention. But I see she has handled it all with extraordinary grace. As a gay man I’m well aware of how deeply discrimination hurts. The last thing I would ever want to do is inflict that pain on someone else.”
I’m sorry but “I genuinely regret that Rebel has found this hard” kinda sounds like “I’m sorry YOU were offended.” We’re not off to the greatest of starts here, folks.
Horney goes on to include a copy/paste of the email he sent Wilson’s management where he appeared to give Rebel a two-day countdown before he announced she was dating a woman.
“At 9.27am last Thursday I wrote: “Good morning. I am a journalist from The Sydney Morning Herald and I was hoping I could get a comment from Rebel regarding her new relationship.
“However, in the interests of transparency and fairness, before publishing I am reaching out to Rebel to see if she will engage in what I believe is a happy and unexpected news story for her, especially given the recent Pride celebrations.
“My deadline is Friday, 1pm Sydney-time. Regards, Andrew Hornery.”
He concludes his article with the following two paragraphs:
“In trying to tell the story within the story, which is what Private Sydney does, the tone of my column on Saturday was also off. I got it wrong. I allowed my disappointment to cast a shadow over the piece. That was not fair and I apologise.
“As a result, the Herald will take down Saturday’s column and replace it with this one.”
On Sunday night Rebel Wilson finally broke her silence on the sitch.
In a brief tweet, Rebel replied to journalist Kate Doak thanking her for her support during the “very hard situation”.
“Thanks for your comments, it was a very hard situation but trying to handle it with grace,” the tweet read.
Thanks for your comments, it was a very hard situation but trying to handle it with grace 💗
— Rebel Wilson (@RebelWilson) June 12, 2022
Rebel certainly has handled this difficult situation with a ton of grace.
Also making news on Sunday was the SMH editor Bevan Shields who chimed in with a particularly poor taste follow-up.
In it, he defended the move of asking Wilson for comment, writing: “To say that the Herald “outed” Wilson is wrong. Like other mastheads do every day, we simply asked questions and as standard practice included a deadline for a response.”
We’re not convinced, Bevan.
Pride Month should be a time when queer folk feel they can take a few steps forward.
Unfortunately, this saga brought on by the SMH represents a giant step back.
To all our LGBTQIA+ mates out there, keep doin’ you.
If you need mental health support, please call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or chat online.
Under 25? You can reach Kids Helpline at 1800 55 1800 or chat online.
If you require immediate assistance, please call 000.
